How to Save a Life
by kaitalaforever
Summary: Realistic songfic about the effects of drug abuse on everyone involved. Inspired by "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. Be warned, there is no happy ending here. Rated for mentions of drug abuse and character death.


**Disclaimer: **kaitalaforever owns nothing except her own words!

Song lyrics taken from "How to Save a Life" by The Fray

**Rating:** M. I think that's safest.

**Warnings: **Drug abuse, Character death. You all know me by now. I am the master of the unhappy ending.

Normal text is Kai's flashback/memory

"spoken"

_Lyrics_

((present day))

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"Kai, I need to borrow some money. Just a couple hundred, maybe a thousand. I'm in deep with worse people and I just need a hit. Just one more hit and I'll use the rest to pay the loan shark. I promise."

_Step one you say we need to talk  
>He walks you say sit down it's just a talk<br>He smiles politely back at you  
>you stare politely right on through<em>

"Tala sit down. We need to talk."

"Never mind. It's ok. I'm ok."

"Tala. Sit. Please?"

_Some sort of window to your right  
>as he goes left and you stay right<br>between the lines of fear and blame  
>and you begin to wonder why you came<em>

"Tala. We can't keep doing this. **I** can't keep doing this. I can't keep walking this road. I can't keep watching you destroy yourself."

"Who says I'm destroying myself?"

"I do."

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
>somewhere along in the bitterness<br>and I would have stayed up with you all night  
>had I known how to save a life<em>

((Kai scanned the obituaries, as he did every morning. But this morning was different. This morning he saw the name he had been watching for over the past few years. There it was, in black and white. Tala Ivanov.))

_Let him know that you know best  
>Cause after all you do know best<br>Try to slip past his defense  
>Without granting innocence<em>

"Tala I know why you do these things. I know it helps. But there are much better options out there! I'm living proof! You can beat this! You don't need the drugs to live!"

_Lay down a list of what is wrong  
>The things you've told him all along<br>And pray to God, he hears you  
>And pray to God, he hears you<em>

"You are going to kill yourself. Someone is going to find you, face down in the gutter, with the needle still sticking out of your arm, and…and I can't be the one to do that. I can't. Don't you understand how much I love you? I can't sit here and say or do nothing!"

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
>somewhere along in the bitterness<br>and I would have stayed up with you all night  
>had I known how to save a life<br>_

((Kai went out to the suburb where he had last heard Tala had been living. He soon came across some of the redheads junkie friends, and although he didn't want to hear the truth. He had to know. The biting realization of just how the love of his life spent his last few years hit him hard. Especially when they told him Tala had been found just as he predicted all those years ago, in the gutter, with a needle still hanging out the vein in his arm. It was like someone stabbed him clean through his heart.))

_As he begins to raise his voice  
>you lower yours and grant him one last choice<br>Drive until you lose the road  
>or break with the ones you've followed<em>

"You don't know what it's like Kai! You have no fucking idea! Don't get all preachy with me! Not you! Just…don't."

"I'm going to give you a choice. I have five hundred bucks here; it's all the bank would let me have. If you don't take it from me. If you choose to stay here, and get clean, then everything I have is yours. I will spend every last dollar I have keeping you safe, and warm, and happy. I love you with all my heart Tala, I really really do. And if you end up in some rehab, then I will be there to make sure you have everything you need. But Tala, if you take this money? And you walk out that door? Then this is it. This is the end. You'll be dead to me...and I won't have partner anymore."

_He will do one of two things  
>He will admit to everything<br>or he'll say he's just not the same  
>and you begin to wonder why you came<em>

"Kai, I'm not the same as I was back then. Everything has changed. I've changed." With that final statement, the redhead sadly took the money from Kai, and brushed past him as he moved toward the door.

Kai got down on his knees. It wasn't part of the plan, but this wasn't how the plan was supposed to go.

"Tala please don't do this. Don't. Please. It doesn't have to be this way."

Tala gave the phoenix one last look with his crystal eyes, before leaving, closing the door behind him with a gentle click.

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
>somewhere along in the bitterness<br>and I would have stayed up with you all night  
>had I known how to save a life<em>

((Kai stood at the wolf's grave, tears pricking his eyes. He laid a single red rose next to the headstone, and said

"I'll always love you. I just wish I'd known how to save you."))

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
>somewhere along in the bitterness<br>and I would have stayed up with you all night  
>had I known how to save a life<em>

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Reviews? I've not done a songfic before. The inspiration fairy is a strange one at times.


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